


Yesterday

by TeekiJane



Series: The Boys of Summer [24]
Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeekiJane/pseuds/TeekiJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam didn’t know what to expect when he and Tiffany went to the clinic, but he never expected <i>this</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> This one is dedicated to Morgan E, who laughed and then encouraged when I said I wanted to write a story about a couple of gay guys. It didn’t turn out to be slash (I just don’t have slash in me, sorry, Morgan!) but I’m pretty proud of it anyway.

_Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be_  
_There’s a shadow hanging over me_  
_Oh, yesterday came suddenly_  
The Beatles, Yesterday

**Adam ******

Tiffany’s never been what some people would call a mover and shaker. So when she called me Tuesday night saying she’d decided not to go through with the pregnancy, I fully expected not to hear anything about it again for a while. I’d expected to be the one doing research, calling to ask questions and make appointments.

So I was really surprised when she called me just after I got home from work on Wednesday. She’d gone online and found a place in Stamford that did “family planning” confidentially, for a reasonable fee. She’d already called them and found out that it was a two-step process: first you came in, filled out paperwork, did some lab work, had an ultrasound and talked with a counselor. Then you waited a week, and if you still wanted to go through with it, you got your abortion, just like that. It was relatively easy. Tiff said that, based upon the conversation she’d had with the woman on the phone, she thought they largely catered to young people who didn’t want their parents to know. That sounded a lot like us. 

She’d made an appointment, too. The place was only open on weekdays, so her appointment was Monday morning. She’d seemed surprised that I’d wanted to come with her to the initial appointment, but I’d told her that we were in this together, no matter what. I thought she might need me. Plus, I kinda wanted to know what was going on and what would happen during the “procedure.” So I made the decision to call in sick to work on Monday and go with her. 

I honestly hadn’t known whether to be nervous or relieved when Tiff decided on an abortion. I mean, I really, really didn’t want to be a dad at this point in my life. But at the same time, I felt like this was spinning so much out of my control. I usually have a tight rein over what’s going on around me. I’m always at the center of everything. Byron calls me a social director, which makes me sound like a cast member of _The Love Boat_ , but I get the reference. I’ve always been a bit of a leader, although sometimes I pull the strings behind the scenes. I thought I could handle everything life could possibly throw at me. 

But then Tiff had told me she was pregnant. I just didn’t understand it, because we’d been so careful. By now, I’d had about a week to think about it, and I’d realized it didn’t matter _how_ it had happened. All that really mattered was that it had happened, and Tiffany had made up her mind about what she was going to do. 

I couldn’t decide why I was so completely uneasy about it. If I’d been the one making the decisions, it’s what I would have chosen. I think it was the fact that Tiff hadn’t needed me after all. She’d made up her mind and gotten all the ducks in a row without really getting my input at all. 

I found that I needed someone to bring all this to—someone to whom I could say the words out loud without judgment. In the past, Jordan and I had always talked about everything. I can’t exactly explain why I hadn’t said a word to him about this. It’s a combination of things. He wasn’t there when I first wanted to talk to someone—he’d been out with Haley. Then there’s the fact that he hasn’t exactly been the most supportive person in the universe about my relationship with Tiff. He wasn’t really keen on my picking up the relationship, and he wasn’t exactly happy for me when he found out Tiff and I had started having sex. I’m not sure if his problem was one of jealousy or whether he was legitimately concerned about me. 

I’ve spent the last four years of my life seeing Jordan as my best friend, but as I stopped and thought about it, we’d never had a really serious conversation. The time when I’d told him about my sex life was the closest we’d ever come. I guess you could argue that it was because neither one of us had really had a serious problem before. But we had had issues, and we’d either made jokes about them, or we’d pretended they hadn’t existed. 

More than a year ago, Jordan and I had all these plans. We were going to go to college together—or at least, near each other. We’d been mostly looking at schools in NYC. After I’d heard about the program at OU and had gotten excited about it, I’d tried to convince Jordan that there was a school out in Ohio for him. I’d sorta figured that the two of us would apply together and Byron would just kind of fall into place and follow us. But then we’d learned that Jordan was being scouted for his baseball skills. I was surprised because, although I knew on some level that he was a better player than I was (he put more effort into it) I didn’t think he was _that_ much better. 

But after a while, I’d realized that, even if the scout had been interested in me, I didn’t really want to play ball in college. That was the difference between me and Jordan. For him, before Haley came along, baseball equaled life. He lived and breathed ball most of the time. So I wasn’t really shocked when he’d taken a scholarship. What had surprised me was that, of the two schools that had tried to recruit him, he’d picked Florida. The other one was so much closer to home—and to Ohio. After that had happened, I hadn’t been surprised when Byron had decided on Duke. I’m not exactly a cartographer, but I was pretty sure that would put him closer geographically to Jordan than to me. On some level, I felt as if over the next few weeks when we left for school, I was losing my brothers—for good. 

Sunday night, just about everyone was home for once. Margo had just come home from camp, and Claire wasn’t leaving for her camp until morning. Mallory was the only one who wasn’t home—she had gone to spend some time with her friend Jessi in New York City. My sisters were all downstairs playing a game of Monopoly and they’d somehow convinced Nick to join them. I think they were regretting that, because he was kicking their asses. Jordan was upstairs talking on the phone in our room. I knew exactly who he was talking to, because there’s only one person in the world he calls Honey (thank goodness.) He was trying to convince her that things were okay between them despite some incident that had happened earlier that day that I hadn’t asked about. He spends a lot of time doing stuff like that. 

Byron had shut himself up in his room. The girls and Nick had asked him to join in their game, but he’d declined. He’d been walking around for the past week with a funny little smile on his face. I wasn’t sure what that was all about, but it was nice seeing him happy for once. I was a little reluctant to go talk to him about the abortion because I didn’t want to be the one to wipe that grin away. 

I knocked on his door anyway. He opened it almost instantly, as if he’d been standing there waiting for me. “Oh, hey Adam,” he said pleasantly. “I was just about to head out. Jeff got a reprieve on his curfew, and we’re going to the drive in tonight.” 

I raised my eyebrows briefly. The drive in had been closed down for years until the summer before. It always plays a double feature on Saturday and Sunday nights. You’d get there about nine and not get home until one or even later. That left plenty of time for—well, you get the picture. “Sounds like fun,” I said, not really feeling it. “Have a good time.” 

I must not be any good at faking enthusiasm, because he saw right through me. “Come on in,” he said, looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “I’ve got a few minutes.” 

I followed him in and saw that his room was, for once, not neat as a pin. I wanted to smile about that, because Byron had said recently that he cleans when he’s upset. I guess for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t spending his whole day worrying about everything. “Tiff made up her mind,” I told him. He edged his butt onto the side of his desk, trying to indicate he had all the time in the universe. “We’re going in for a visit before the…procedure.” 

“Oh.” I couldn’t read his expression. I had worried a little bit about even telling him. Byron’s always seemed a little more conservative than Jordan and me, although I’m not sure if that’s just the clothes and the way he has of always doing the expected thing. I knew he wasn’t going to turn around and start telling me how to live my life, but the last thing I needed right now was someone giving me disapproving looks. “And how do you feel about that?” he asked, his face still carefully neutral. 

I popped up on to Nick’s desk so we were looking at each other head on. “Relieved, for the most part,” I told him. 

He nodded. “I can understand that. How’s the rest of you feeling?” 

“What?” 

“You said you were relieved for the most part. How about the…least part?” Byron chuckled lightly at the phrasing. “How is that part of you that’s not relieved feeling?” 

I thought about that for a moment. “Irritated,” I said slowly. He motioned for me to go on. “She just went and planned all this without me, despite the fact that we said we would do everything together.” 

“Ahh.” Byron’s eyes lit up. I frowned at him. “Now, I understand. It’s hard letting go of a sense of control, isn’t it? Putting something that’s important to you in someone else’s hands?” 

I opened my mouth to say something, but I stopped. I was looking at Byron through completely different eyes right now. What happened to my brother who was scared of everything? He’d been replaced by a philosopher. He realized I was staring at him and he started to blush. Suddenly, the effect was gone. Maybe Byron wasn’t really that different after all—maybe he was just growing up. 

In any case, he shook himself and, realizing I wasn’t going to reply, went on with his thought. “Think about this, Adam. You had told me a couple of things the other day, and I’m basically just going to spit them back to you with a different spin, okay? You told me that Tiff had wanted you to tell her what to do. Well, maybe she just realized that it’s time for her to make her own decisions and be responsible for her own life. That’s a great thing, and it’s at least partly thanks to you.” He subtly checked his watch, hoping I wouldn’t notice. “Also, you basically said this was what you were hoping for. Maybe you should be less worried about how it comes about and just be thankful that things are going the way you wanted?” 

I sighed deeply. “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure he was so correct about anything, but it was easier to admit he _could_ be right than to argue about whether he actually was right. 

“I gotta tell you,” he said. “This has been a touchy situation, but you’ve been handling it like a mature, responsible man.” 

“Instead of kicking and screaming on the ground like a toddler, which is what I want to do?” 

“Right.” He shifted and was standing up. “When is the big appointment?” he asked. 

I took the hint that the conversation was winding to a close. “We have a preliminary appointment tomorrow morning. They do some tests, check everything out, tell us what to expect. Then they make you wait a week so you have time to change your mind.” I had been silently praying that Tiff wouldn’t change her mind at the last second. “Now that everything’s decided, I have to ask you: I know you wouldn’t have said anything about it before, but you’re not...all anti-abortion, are you?” 

Byron smiled. “No. I’m about as pro-choice as they come. Think about it: what right do I have to tell women what to do with their bodies when I don’t even want to touch them?” I almost smiled at that. “Besides, I’m very liberal in my politics in general. I’m for social services and obviously for gay rights. Being pro-choice just kind of fits in there. There are things that I’d like to do someday that were once considered illegal, and some that still are illegal.” I gave him a confused look. “I can’t really get married, can I?” he asked and I nodded in understanding. “I don’t want some politician telling me what I can and can’t do with my reproductive system, so I’m definitely not going to do that to anyone else, either.” 

That made me feel a little better. “Thanks, man. I’ll keep you updated.” 

He aimed a fake punch at my chin. “You’d better. In the meantime, I’ll be here tomorrow morning if you want to talk some more before you leave. Just come on in and wake me; it’s cool.” He grabbed his wallet and a couple of other things off his bed. “I think Jordan’s going to be here all night, so if you need anything while I’m gone, he’d probably be the best bet.” 

Obviously, Byron didn’t know that Jordan didn’t know. “I should be okay.” 

Byron picked up a pillow off his bed as well and stuffed it in his armpit. “Sorry to have to cut the conversation short, but I just can’t keep the man I love waiting. See you later.” He slid out the door. 

I gawked at his retreating back. He’d slipped that one phrase in so easily that you’d think it was something he said all the time. But even though I knew Byron and Jeff were getting close and falling in love, I never expected Byron to be just so easy-going about saying it out loud. Hell, just a week ago, he’d stood in almost the exact same place I was standing right now and denied he even felt that way. Something had definitely changed for him. 

I didn’t want to go be sociable with any of my family, so I sat down in Byron’s desk chair and looked at his desk. I knew he wouldn’t mind. During the school year, it’s usually stacked with books and notebooks and calculators and all kinds of other nerdy things, but all of it is meticulously organized. Now he just had three things: a checklist of what was allowed and not allowed in the dorms at Duke, with initials next to just about every allowed item: Bs for what Byron was bringing, Js for Julio; a course catalog for Duke, propped open to the required classes for biomedical engineering, with dates and comments written into the margins; and a map of the school, with his dorm and the buildings for all his classes highlighted. I almost laughed. Leave it to Byron to have the route to all his classes memorized weeks before he even moved into his dorm. This summer had been one of change for him in many ways, but he was still the same old Byron in many others. 

I leaned back in his chair, putting his neatly organized future out of my mind. This summer had had some big changes for me, too. I had picked up an old relationship and finally lost my virginity—and now I regretted both of those things. I wasn’t sure _I_ had actually changed at all, though. I hadn’t found ‘true love’ the way my brothers thought they had. I hadn’t discovered my mysteriously hidden purpose in life or anything like that. Other than getting a girl I liked pregnant, I really hadn’t done much at all…and that one thing wasn’t exactly something to be proud of. 

I couldn’t wait for it to be morning so we could just get this over with. 

***

I left my house more than two hours early for the appointment. Because I hadn’t told anyone but Byron, I had to keep up the appearance that I was going in to work. I drove aimlessly around town for quite a while, but I was still ridiculously early arriving at Tiff’s house. Despite that, Tiff was already waiting on the front porch. 

I thought _I_ looked bad until I saw her. We hadn’t seen each other for a week, ever since we’d left Haley’s house, and she looked like she hadn’t slept since then. She hadn’t bothered with makeup or combing her hair and her lack of expression reminded me of Jeff’s the last time I’d seen him. She rubbed one hand across her eyes as I pulled up to the driveway and I guessed that she’d spent some time crying. “Hi,” she said lifelessly as she climbed into the passenger’s seat. 

“How are you?” I asked, completely pointlessly, as she put on her seatbelt. 

She sighed and leaned her head sideways against the seat back and looked at me. “This has been the worst week of my life,” she said, still not displaying any emotion. 

I nodded as I put the car into reverse. “Yeah. I know what you mean.” 

Tiff continued to stare in my direction. Despite the fact that I was looking over my shoulder while backing down the driveway, I could feel her eyes on me. “I just want this to be over with so I can move on with my life,” she said morosely. “I can’t really deal with my feelings about this until it’s finished.” 

I sighed a little, feeling a little bit more relieved. If she was desperate to get it over, then she was less likely to change her mind in the next week. “We’re going to be early,” I commented, just to say something. 

She shrugged. “That’s okay. Maybe they’ll be able to get us in early. Anyway, I’m going to feel the same way whether we sit in my house waiting for the ‘proper’ time to leave or if we go now. We might as well go now.” 

We were quiet the whole way to Stamford, until just before we arrived. I knew the general area where the clinic was located, but not its exact location. Tiff pulled a set of directions out of her purse and looked them over. I was more than a little surprised; she’s not usually that prepared. She saw me glance over at her and her lips twitched into an attempted smile. “Shannon printed this out for me,” she said, reading my expression accurately. 

“You told her?” I was very impressed by the fact that Tiff and Shannon had had an actual conversation. From what I’ve seen, Shannon usually talks, and Tiffany either ignores her or is rude to her. 

“Yeah. It was amazing. She said,” Tiff paused and looked up, struggling to remember the actual conversation, “‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ whatever that means. In any case, she said she stands behind me no matter happens.” I reached out my right hand to her and she took it and squeezed. “That makes two people in this whole universe that feel that way.” 

We pulled up a short time later. I stopped the car and cracked the windows, concerned about the heat. Tiffany looked over at me expectantly, and I could see panic growing in her eyes. I think the whole appointment wasn’t really real to her until we stood outside the building, getting ready to go in. “What will other people say?” she asked generically. 

I looked at the signs in the windows. “They don’t just do abortions here,” I pointed out quietly, “They do birth control and STD treatment and other reproductive health. For all anyone knows,” I said as I stepped out of the car, still looking at her, “You’re here to get a diaphragm or a birth control implant.” 

She nodded and let out a long breath. “I guess you’re right.” She joined me in front of the car and took my hand again. I led the way into the building. 

The waiting room was pretty busy; there went our chances of getting in early. We checked in at reception and Tiff was given a long pile of paperwork to fill out. She looked horribly overwhelmed. “I’d ask you to help with this,” she said as we took some seats, “but from what I can see, it’s all personal history. It might take me all the time until our appointment just to fill this out.” 

She wasn’t kidding. As she began slowly and laboriously filling out all the blanks on the forms, I looked around. Most of the women in the place seemed to be alone. Some of them looked ill; others seemed to be brimming with health. I was right when I’d spoken earlier. You really couldn’t tell why each woman was there. 

Tiffany finished the paperwork a little quicker than she expected and turned it into the receptionist. The two of us sat there, my hand clutched in hers, silently watching the parade of people who entered the door, were called back, and left through the same door. 

Finally, just a few minutes after our appointment was scheduled, she got called. I got up and followed, just a step behind her, not sure I would be allowed to stick around through the whole appointment. But no one seemed to mind my presence; in fact, the nurse or whoever that brought us back to the office said Tiff was lucky to have someone with her. 

The first part of everything was a pretty standard physical exam. They got Tiffany’s weight, height, pulse, blood pressure and temperature. The woman who had taken us back drew several vials of blood and then told us a doctor would be with us shortly. I expected to settle in for a nice long wait, but we were only seated for five silent minutes when a doctor came in. 

He wasn’t exactly one of those pleasant, making small talk kinds of doctors. He verified Tiff’s identity and then barked a series of orders at her while I stood back and watched. He looked at her eyes, nose and ears and then listened to her breath. He then made her lie down and pulled her shirt up under her breasts while he felt her stomach. I was startled to note a small rounding of her stomach area already—very subtle, but definitely there. I had to look away from it. I felt the same way looking at that swell that Tiff had standing underneath the clinic sign: it was an obvious sign of what we’d done and what we were about to do. 

Tiff and I didn’t talk any until we were ushered into another office. This one had no examining table, no medical mumbo-jumbo on the walls. No one said it to us, but this was clearly the counselor’s office. This was where all our questions would get answers. “Are you doing okay?” I asked quietly. 

She shrugged. “As well as can be expected. This place kinda gives me the creeps. Everything’s so clinical. If you think about it, they’re basically going around murdering babies all day long.” 

I shuddered and looked away from her. “I prefer not to think about _that_ ,” I pointed out. Tiffany shrugged again, not looking remorseful. “Anyway, that’s probably why they are so clinical. If they stop to think about what they’re doing, maybe it depresses them.” I worried a little about the way she’d said _murder_. 

Before I had a chance to contemplate further what she’d meant by her comment, the counselor walked in. She was a young woman and looked like she might have been straight out of college. She couldn’t have been too much older than we were—not more than 25. “Hi, Tiffany?” she said in greeting. Tiff nodded. “I’m Martha. I’m going to tell you what to expect, answer any questions you may have, and refer you to any other additional services you may need. Who is this you have with you today?” 

Tiff had begun chewing on one of her nails, so I answered for her. “Adam. I’m her boyfriend,” I said. 

Martha smiled encouragingly and went on. “I understand you’re hoping to get an abortion. There are several types of abortion, but we only do one type here at this clinic, and we only do them up to twelve weeks of pregnancy. Anything further along than that and we refer you elsewhere.” She shuffled through some papers and pulled out one that seemed to be a summary of everything. “According to this, you’re about six weeks, so you shouldn’t have any problems. We’re waiting on your lab results, but the doctor wanted you to have an ultrasound—we don’t always require them, but in your case, he wanted us to check on something. I’ll go over a few things with you here while we’re waiting for the ultrasound machine to be free. I’m usually pretty thorough, but if you have any questions, stop me at any time.” 

And, boy, was she ever thorough. I learned more about how an abortion is performed that day than I ever wanted or needed to know. From arrival to leaving, we were expected to be there between ninety minutes to two hours, but the actual procedure itself took no more than ten minutes. She explained every step, between how they’d give Tiff pain medication and a sedative if she’d like, to the actual medical procedure involved. It was too gross to even contemplate. Martha explained how long Tiff could expect to bleed afterward, and how it would be normal to feel sad or relieved or any number of things when it was over. 

Tiff didn’t have any questions when Martha was done talking and quite frankly, neither did I. I’d expected to have just tons of things I still needed to know, but obviously, when you spend all day long explaining the procedure, you learned to anticipate exactly what people were going to ask before they even knew what they were going to ask. 

Martha left to find out how much longer we would need to wait. Tiffany turned and looked at me for the first time since Martha had come in the room. One of her fingers was bleeding from where she’d ripped off a hangnail. I expected her to look even more freaked out than she had before the counselor had started talking—I know that’s how I felt. Instead she surprised me: her eyes had a determined quality like I’d never seen before. “Are you going to be able to take another day off work next week to bring me back in?” she asked. “Because if you can’t, Shannon said she’d do it.” 

I looked away. “No, I’ll be able to take you.” I didn’t really want to come back here, ever. But I felt like this was a problem of my making, and I needed to be a man and see it through to the end. 

Tiff’s expression changed. “You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?” she asked seriously. 

I turned back to her. “No.” And I wasn’t. The feeling of creepiness that Tiffany had encountered earlier had just shifted to me. I was sure I would get over it. 

Tiff rubbed her hands together like they were cold. “I’ve always wondered what getting an ultrasound was like,” she said. “I saw an episode of A Baby Story once. They rub this gel on your belly. It looks icy cold and uncomfortable.” For a second I thought she might cry, but she shook it off. 

She didn’t have to wonder much longer. A few minutes later, a woman came in and collected Tiff. She looked over at me. “I’ll be back for you when she’s ready. It’ll be a few minutes, okay?” She didn’t wait for me to reply. 

Suddenly I was alone in a woman’s reproductive health clinic. Once again, I wondered what I had done so wrong that my life had spun so completely out of my control. I’m not a bad guy. I’ve never been arrested and I’ve never set out to purposely hurt anyone. I haven’t done much in my life that could really be labeled as horrible. Was this some kind of cosmic commentary on the choices I had made? I couldn’t imagine that were true. 

When the woman came back for me, I jumped out of my seat. I was ready for this whole appointment to be over. I wanted to get in the car and drive away from this place and go home and take a long hot shower and wash the smell and feel of the clinic off me. 

She led me to a long, narrow room. Tiff was lying on a bed wearing a hospital gown and looking nervous as hell. I was directed to go stand beside her head, which I did wordlessly. Tiff looked at me and I held out my hand, which she gratefully took. I watched and listened as a young man—the ultrasound tech—explained what he was going to do. He took out the gel and I saw Tiff cringe as he rubbed it across her lower abdomen. “The pictures will show up over here,” he said, pointing to some monitors pointed away from us. “My associate,” he continued, referring to the woman who had whisked us out of the counselor’s office, “will observe them. Normally during an ultrasound, one person would do both jobs, but we’ve found that most of our clients prefer not to see the images.” Tiff and I both nodded our agreement to that statement. 

The man picked up a piece of the apparatus and started slowly moving it around on Tiff’s stomach, watching the woman. “Okay,” she said. He held it relatively still and she looked the screen over critically. She was mostly hidden from my view behind the monitor, but I craned my head to take her in. Her brow was furrowed and I couldn’t tell if she looked confused or concerned. She stepped out from behind the monitor and looked straight at Tiff for a moment. “Hon,” she said, “how far along did you say you were?” 

Tiff wrinkled up her nose as she thought. “Almost six weeks,” she said in a voice just above a whisper. 

The tech stepped back behind the monitor and looked at the screen again. She was silent for a moment, so when she spoke, she surprised me. “No,” was all she said. 

I looked at her over the monitor. “What?” I asked, genuinely confused. 

She came back out and stood beside Tiff. “No, you’re not six weeks along. If I had to guess,” she said, taking a step back and glancing back at the image on the screen, “I’d say you were closer to sixteen weeks.” 

I glanced at Tiff, bewildered. Sixteen weeks was four months. We’d only been together for about two and a half. If she was sixteen weeks, that meant she’d already been pregnant that day back in May when we’d met up for coffee. It meant that this wasn’t my baby she was carrying. 

Tiff looked even more stunned than I felt. “No, that’s not possible,” she said. 

The tech looked sympathetic. “I could be off by a week or two,” she said, “but there’s a big difference between a six week ultrasound and a sixteen week one.” She picked Tiff’s file off the counter and read over something for a moment. “Unfortunately, hon, since you’re so far along, we aren’t going to be able to provide you with an abortion at this location. If you want, I can get one of our counselors to refer you to another clinic on the other side of town that can provide you with the services you need.” 

Tiff shook her head and sniffled. I could see she was trying really hard not to burst into tears. “No,” she said quietly. “I’ll be fine.” The male tech had removed the piece from Tiff’s abdomen and now he was carefully wiping her belly clean of the gooey gel. I squeezed her hand, but she didn’t even look at me. 

The female tech looked kindly on Tiff. “If you are going to go ahead with the procedure, you’ll need to do it soon,” she said. Tiff nodded her understanding. “Meanwhile, I’m going to give you an approximate due date of January 10th. If you’re going to go through with the pregnancy, I’m going to suggest you find an OB-GYN right away and get an appointment as soon as possible.” Tiff sat up and I let go of her hand. “I’ll take you to get dressed.” The tech turned toward me. “Someone will be right with you to take you back up front to the waiting room. Your girlfriend will be right up with you.” 

As I waited, I tried to figure out what had just happened. Beyond feeling like I’d just stepped into a soap opera, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel now. Was it okay to be relieved because I didn’t have to worry about being a father anymore? I guess it didn’t really matter if it was okay to be relieved, because I wasn’t feeling relief. I was mostly just feeling anxious. What was Tiff going to do now? How would her ex—who must be the dad if I wasn’t—going to respond to this information? Was she going to have and keep the baby? Now that I knew I wasn’t the father, I didn’t feel like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I actually felt worse than ever. 

By the time someone came to take me to the waiting room, Tiff was already there, settling up the bill. I didn’t ask how she was paying for it. I was almost too numb to speak. I had already decided to clean out my savings account to pay for the abortion if necessary. I guess that wasn’t something I needed to worry about any more though. 

We silently made our way to the car, Tiff still not looking at me. I put the key into the ignition but didn’t start the car. I had found my voice. “Did you know?” I asked her. 

She turned to me for the first time since the tech had sprung the news, and I could instantly see how stupid the question had been. “No,” she said, her voice surprisingly clear and steady for how tortured she looked. “I didn’t know. I would have never put you in this position if I’d known.” She took a deep breath. “Adam, I’m so sorry.” 

I eyed her critically for a moment and then started the car as an excuse to break eye contact. “For what?” I asked. “It _could_ have been my kid. I’m not mad at you over that. I’m just so confused.” That was the understatement of the year. 

Tiffany looked at me as I pulled the car back onto the street. I continued to watch the road, not her. “I should have known,” she said. “I should have known I was pregnant way before now. Sixteen weeks is nearly half-way! How could I have missed that?” 

I didn’t know enough about how a pregnancy progressed to really answer that. She went on without waiting for me to reply anyway. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, still never taking her eyes off me. “I can’t go for that abortion now.” 

I glanced at her as we rolled up on a stop sign. “Why not?” I asked. 

She put a finger to her mouth but didn’t start chewing the nail just yet. “I did some research. I picked this place because they only do that one type of abortion. The other type is so much more invasive. And after a certain point, they,” she paused and looked down, looking pained, “they have to stop the baby’s heart before they perform the abortion. I don’t care what you or anyone else says,” she said, looking back at me as if willing me to disagree with her, “at that point, it’s murder.” 

I wasn’t about to disagree with her. “Okay, then.” I said as I turned back to the road and made a right turn. 

She went on. “I have a bunch of things I’m going to have to do now,” she said, looking out the windshield, talking more to herself than to me. “I need to tell my mom. I need to decide if I’m going to keep the baby,” she went on. “And I need to talk to Eric.” Tiff tore at her nail for a moment and then looked at me. “That’s going to be the worst. He’s not going to be nearly as nice as you have been.”

I didn’t feel like I’d been so nice about this whole thing, but maybe I was better at covering than I thought. “Can I help you with anything?” I asked, maybe just because she’d called me nice. 

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I think,” she said, biting her lower lip, “that it’s time for me to stand on my own two feet.” 

I looked at her for a moment as we continued to drive forward. “I think you’re off to a good start on that,” I said, meaning every word.

**Author's Note:**

> Coming soon in _The Boys of Summer_ :  
> Byron just hates it when Adam and Jordan argue  
> Haley drags Jeff along on one of Vanessa’s harebrained schemes.  
> Jordan says goodbye to his heart.


End file.
